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“You Are Going to Disrespect Our Nation”: Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Draws ‘Hundreds’ of Complaints to FCC

Published 02/28/2023, 10:15 AM EST

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The Super Bowl LVII Halftime show saw a beautiful Rihanna dressed like a siren. The ‘Rude Boy’ singer performed for the first time since 2016. Even though the Lombardi Trophy winner Patrick Mahomes could not watch the bombshell performance, according to fans, he did not miss much. Despite hundreds of people who loved her performance, US regulators received over 100 complaints about the Grammy-winning star’s overtly sexual and obscene show. What are these complaints?

Numerous complaints about the Umbrella singer’s “rude, obscene ‘performance’” were made to the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees interstate and international communications via cable, radio, television, satellite, and wire. These complaints criticized the singer’s sexualized lyrics and the gyrating choreography of her background dancers as being offensive or inappropriate.

Viewers were staunchly against the Super Bowl Halftime performance of Rihanna

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Rihanna also shocked the world when she revealed her second pregnancy on stage. The star did not dance a lot but sang her popular songs like ‘B*tch Better Have My Money,’ ‘Rude Boy,’ ‘Only Girl,’ ‘Work,’ and ‘Diamonds.’ Although many fans praised the highly anticipated show, it elicited negative comments from viewers. 

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As per the official record, some complaints did not even spell her name correctly, and one even confused her with Shakira. However, the majority of them were repulsed that the makeup mogul was touching herself and showing off her pregnancy. 

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Viewers were angry with how Riri presented herself

These allegations were acquired by Rolling Stone magazine through a FOIA request. Some of these complaints were:

The sexualization, genital grabbing, sniffing of her fingers, man pulling off his jacket and then girating all while singing lyrics far too inappropriate for a family sport event. I will NOT watch this again next year if this is how you are going to disrespect our nation.” 

via Imago

“She spread her a*s ch*ek at the crack. She rubbed her pants where her l*bia were three times.”

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“I was shocked by the halftime show by Shakira. She is pregnant and was pumping her pelvis while holding her cr*tch and another time she and her backup dancers were holding their hands up the c*acks of their butts and pumping … I would have rather Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction which was an accident to this crap.”

Performers Cr*tch grabbing then sniffing her hand? Perpetual air humping and glorifying being a stripper isn’t child friendly for the Super Bowl.”

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There were many other complaints which said that her performance was indecent and not suitable for young children. Despite that, 118.7 million tuned in to watch the mega-star perform after her long music hiatus.

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Written by:

Neha Joshi

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Neha Joshi is an NFL writer at Essentially Sports. She is currently pursuing her postgraduate degree in English Literature from R.D National College, Mumbai and has also previously worked as a Graduate Intern at Jacobs.
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Edited by:

Hitesh Nigam